


Take a Running Jump

by twilightshadow



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ben Solo is a dork, F/M, Libraries, Prompt Fill, Rey is unproblematic as always, Tumblr Prompt, alternate universe - modern AU, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 07:27:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5819533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightshadow/pseuds/twilightshadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: "I’m too short to reach the top shelf and too stubborn to get a stool. You watched me take a running leap for it before you offered to grab the book for me"</p><p>Or: In which Rey is too short for the shelf, Ben Solo is a blushing dork, and many worse first dates have been planned in library stacks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take a Running Jump

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who's back, back again...
> 
> I came across some prompts on my Tumblr dashboard and thought, 'What The Heck.' I am also officially coming out as Reylo Trash, let's party...

Rey sprinted for the covered entryway of the town library, her bag of textbooks and notebooks jouncing on her back, shoes splashing puddles and leaving ripples on the pavement in her wake. A welcoming blast of warm air hit her as she stepped through the old wooden doors and out of the deluge.

The receptionist grinned at her. “Raining?”

“Only a bit,” muttered Rey, shaking the loose drops off her raincoat.

Jessika smiled. “This place is full of drowned rats today, so you’re in good company.”

Rey grinned. “Maybe that’s what you should rename this place – the Rats Nest.”

“Pitch it to Councillor Organa. Now get outta my hallway, you’re making it look untidy.”

Rey stuck her tongue out, and passed through a second set of glass doors to the lending library proper. She was greeted by a soft layer of studious quiet that was almost as familiar to her as her own name. An area of long benches in the centre of the floor, surrounded by rows of stacks three deep. Light which would normally have been filtering in pretty colours through the stained glass windows of the 18th century building, was muted and muddied due to the rain. No less pretty, but not quite the ethereal effect that occurred on sunny days.

When she’d first started coming here, she’d been 8 years old and suffering the usual in her latest foster home. Parents with too many children to focus on to notice that the smallest girl in the house was being mercilessly picked on. So Rey escaped to the library. The quiet was a welcome break, the company of the books infinitely preferable to the clamour of home.

Rey picked her favourite table, in the corner by the maths section and peeled away her soggy outer layers. It was 11 years later, university Easter break, and she was preparing for exams to kick in the minute she got back, but the library was still her refuge. Some things will never change.

***

Someone’s taken all the goddamn stools.

Well, not quite. The librarians are stocktaking in the reference section and they’ve commandeered pretty much every single stepstool in the bloody library, and Rey is about an inch too short to reach the book she needs.

If the stacks had been fixed into the ground she would have tried to climb them. Unfortunately, thanks to The Incident (involving Finn, Poe, a romance novel, a couple too many shots and a month-long ban), she knew they weren’t. 

“Come on…come on you piece of shit…” She was right up on her tiptoes, straining, and her fingertips were just about brushing the top of the shelf. Within millimetres of the book.

Unfortunately, it’s the Millimetre Too Far.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Rey took two steps back until her back touched the other stack of shelves, then she took a flying leap.

“Ow, shit…shit, shit, shit.” Rey clutches at her nose. Fortunately it wasn’t bleeding. It still hurt like a bitch.

“My God, I am so glad nobody saw that,” she muttered, massaging the bridge, which had taken the brunt of the impact. Go grab some help from a damn librarian for God’s sake, she thought, swallow your bloody pride…

At this moment, a Very Tall Person stepped up behind her, reached up to the offending shelf and took down the book.

Rey span around quickly to meet a long neck, following up to a strong chin, a large nose, mole flecked cheeks and a wide, kissable (kissable?!) mouth which was currently quirked up in an amused smile.

Ah crap. Of all the people who had to watch her faceplant into a shelf full of library books, it had to be Ben Solo. Star of the university fencing team, PhD student under Luke Skywalker himself, her regular sparring partner in their advanced kickboxing class. Son of Councillor Leia Organa and flying ace Han Solo, on his way to doing great things in the world. Over-privileged prick. Everything handed to him on a platter. Everything a foster kid like her despised on principle.

“You saw all of that, didn’t you?”

“You looked like you could use some help.”

“And you couldn’t have stepped in before I hit the goddamn shelf?” Rey asked angrily.

Ben regarded her steadily. “Rey, your stubbornness is legendary.” 

“I was just about to go and ask if they could spare a stool…”

“Would that have been before or after you broke your nose?”

“Shut up,” Rey snapped, flushing scarlet with embarrassment.

He gives her his trademark shit-eating grin, the one he always gives when his opponent is lying on the mat after a rookie move. Rey hates him.

He holds the book out. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

She reaches towards the book in his hands. “Thanks.” All she wants to do now is get out of here, back to the relative sanity of her desk and her revision work, and away from this infuriating man who just watched her embarrass herself royally.

And then, like the prick he is, he whipped the book up and out of her reach again. “I’ll trade you; the book for a cup of coffee. With me. When you get bored of your aerospace engineering equations.”

“Excuse me?”

A light dusting of pink fluttered across his cheekbones. “I think I just asked you out.”

“I think you did as well.” Rey is completely lost for words. “When was the last time you so much as talked to me about anything other than my boxing technique?” is the only thing she can say without spluttering. Smooth, girl. Smooth.

“I…Never? But, I’m offering to now. So…” Ben raises his eyebrows and gave her a hopeful smile. “Cantina? Three today? Or not, you know, if you…if, I mean, you didn’t…it’s up to you I guess. I’d like you to…but…I don’t know. Will you?” He was really blushing now. His six-foot-three frame seemed to hunch in on itself. Rey suddenly twigged.

“How long have you been trying to pluck up the courage to ask me this?”

Ben shrugged. “Few months maybe?”

“Wow.”

“Shut up.”

She grinned. “Well, I suppose that makes us even then. You watch me physically faceplant, I watch you verbally faceplant.”

“Do you want to come out with me or not?”

Rey’s grin doesn’t fade. “Cantina at three, then?”

Ben’s entire body relaxed. “Yeah. That sounds okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. I’m going to go back to studying now.”

“Okay. I’m going to stop saying okay.”

Rey snorted, then winced when her nose twinged.

“Is your nose okay?” He lightly touched her on its bridge.

“It’ll be fine.” She moved away. “I’ve had worse in class.”

“You’ve also given out a few of your own as I recall.”

“Too damn right. They don’t call me Scrapper for nothing.” Rey took advantage of his distraction to snatch the book out of his hands. “I’ll see you at three, Solo.” 

***

Ben smiled as she spun away and out of the stacks. “See you at three, little scrapper,” he murmured.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in less than an hour, it's completely unbeta'd, don't hate me too much if it's totally OOC.
> 
> Oh, it's good to be back.
> 
> The name is twilightshadow, the game is tumblr, come find me. Let's freak out about Star Wars together. Unil then, Sayanora =D xxx


End file.
